A student from the UK changed his name to slip away from exorbitant fees resulting from a booking error.
Adam Armstrong, 19, was slapped with a £220 (P13,202) fee after his girlfriend’s stepdad booked a Ryanair flight under the name Adam West, an alias Armstrong used for his Facebook account.
He told The Sun and Guardian, “Her stepdad got my name from Facebook but I had put it as Adam West as a joke because he was the actor who played Batman on TV.”
“Ryanair were not helpful at all. We showed them we were not trying to change the person, just the name, but they wouldn’t back down,” he ranted.
Instead of shelling out more money, Armstrong thought of a clever idea to save his and his girlfriend’s trip to Ibiza. He changed his name from Adam Armstrong to Adam West for free. However, he rushed to get a new passport under his new name for £103 (P6,180). With his new identity, he serenely flew to the Meditteranean island last week with his girlfriend.
The Irish low-budget carrier imposes costly fees for altering flight details to avoid reselling of tickets. A spokesman for Ryanair told Standard, “Customers are asked to ensure that the details they enter at the time of booking are correct before completing their booking and we offer a 24-hour ‘grace period’ to correct minor booking errors.”
“A name change fee is charged in order to discourage and prevent unauthorized online travel agents from ‘screenscraping’ Ryanair’s cheapest fares and reselling them on to unwitting consumers at hugely inflated costs,” the spokesman added. Gianna Francesca Catolico